Fireworks

The free cut files in the Paper Issues shop were a great way to get last year's 4th of July pictures into albums. 

I started with stitching a red border on the page.

I added white, gold, and a red shimmer mist to the background. 

I added navy Jillibean Soup enamel stars to both cut file cards. Fun and done!

Ahoy, me hearties!

Ahoy, me hearties! We adore this cute pirate ship themed play park. I used lots of October Afternoon Treasure Map to create this page. I love their alphabet stickers as well. 

Bella Blvd had the sweetest "let them be little" sticker which fit this page perfectly!

I added stitching to some of the layers and added white acrylic paint splats near the title. This was for Paper Issues Facebook group Fans and Friends Scraplift Sunday. I am also linking it to the new issue on the PI blog "Seas the Day".

Go Where the Wind Takes You

Treasure Map by October Afternoon was the perfect collection to document my kiddos loving the pirate ship water park pool during Spring break.

A few more details--

The SC Galileo kit stamp set worked well to add journaling. I double stamped to add the red detailing.

OA labels are perfect for layering and telling the story.

I'm linking up to the Paper Issues blog for their newest issue "Seas the Day". 

I was featured on Paper Issues blog for the 2nd Seas the Day round up. Always thankful for the shout out!

Father's Day Card

I watercolored the printable from Paper Issues store. Sketchy Saturday on the Paper Issues blog has a card sketch by Corri Garza, which I used to create this card. 

I love this quote by e.e. cummings and  thought it was the perfect sentiment for my husband and all he is as a dad.  The June printables from the Paper Issues free section in their shop can be used in a project and linked up to the new issue "Seas the Day" .

My Little Firecracker

Ryan at 16 months was on the go. Here's a series of pictures of him at the lake over the 4th of July.

I watercolored the stripes to provide a layer for my title from Miss Kate Cuttables.

I used a grid of 2x2 pictures and Elle's Studio cards and transparencies.

The Paper Issues store has fun Celebrate cut files in the free section. My stars and double stars are from these files.

Thanks for taking a peek at this red, white, and blue layout!

This is the Heart of Summer

I was in love with the colors and summer vibe in the new Pinspired Mood Board at Paper Issues.

My new stash of papers included Simple Stories Summer Vibes. The background paper was perfect for a sunburst style cut file. This one is from The Cut Shoppe called String Art.

Using the paper as my guide for colors, I watercolored to match the patterned paper.

To help lessen the warping in the paper, I stitched down the center of each ray. I used the heart as my cutting template for my pool pictures and tucked them in. I stamped sentiments on the rays in similar color inks.

Happy summer! Enjoy these sweet days!

Sounds of Nature

With Father's Day quickly approaching, I looked through recent layouts for sweet photos of my kids with their daddy. This layout was for a Paper Issues online scrap challenge to involve music or a music theme to a page.  I went non-traditional and incorporated the idea of how being at a zoo can be nature's musical with all of the animal noises.

At Naples Zoo while in Florida for Spring break, the youngest two kids loved this adventure of feeding the giraffes fresh romaine lettuce.  Ryan just got the giggles from peer joy from having such a gentle, giant creature so close to his fingers.  The string art letters from Craft Market were fun to cut out and I adore the title line of Thickers to coordinate with the Crate Paper collections. I love how Crate Paper often has the mist dots already on it, I added a few more drops towards the upper left of the photo to add more detail to the background.

I am linking this up to Paper Issues current issue: Mist-er Fix-It.

but first, coffee

I adore coffee.  It takes me back to sitting at my grandma's kitchen table and enjoying sips of her coffee with lots of creamer.  It's no doubt how I developed a taste for it!  This title cut file, but first, coffee, can be found for free in the Paper Issues shop.  That was my starting point for my layers.

The coffee cup cut file was from Kelly Purkey's Studio Calico Sketchbook class.  Her washi strips are included on my page as well.  I used lots of Shimelle's True Stories papers and embellishments.  The best part of waking up stamp is from Evalicious.  That adds to the Grandma remembrance-- she was a Folger's coffee lover!

I added lots of word and phrase stickers from Crate Paper- Maggie Holmes Confetti collection and from Ali Edwards Firsts kit.  It was fun to play off of the "first" word in various sayings.  This close up also shows the delicious wood grain cardstock paper from American Crafts.

Hope your day involves a cup of Joe. 

Ryan: Golden Birthday

Paper Issues has a Sketchy Saturday link up and this was based on an October Afternoon LO by Sasha Farina.

I loved how she spelled out a word in descending boxes so this cut file by 17 Turtles worked perfectly.

These were all photos from Ryan's golden birthday. It was pirate themed, so OA's Treasure Map was perfect to use again.  Also, I love any reason to have circle photos, too!

I loved Sasha's double frame of stitching, so I did that here.

I enjoyed the nudge to use mist, sequins, and stars!  I'm linking up to Paper Issues Seas the Day new issue! Yay for pirate themed parties!Thanks for looking!

Pedal Pub

To celebrate our 15th Anniversary, we rented a pedal pub in St. Paul to tour several bars. 

The left side with lots of pics of the fun.

The right side included my journaling about our workout adventure. I have linked this up to the Paper Issues blog.

4th of July

I was excited to try out my new SC stamp set for the Make It Big class by Paige Evans. 

The inside is a mix of star stamps by MAMBI and Elle's Studio.

This card will link up to Paper Issues Red, White, and Blue Issue. I also linked this Instagram photo collage LO:

Love You to the Moon

This page was inspired by Paige Evans Make it Big class at Studio Calico. 

It started from this sketch:

After cutting the wavy strips apart, I cut the letters from the sketch on top of scraps from SC kits as a cutting guide. Here's how it looked before pictures and stitching.

A close up of the fun moon flair from a SC kit and other puffy stickers.

And another view:

I had wanted to do a hand cut lettering page, so this was the perfect class to inspire me to make a layout. I changed out the V after sewing the grid one down as it appeared navy instead of black! 

Here's a link to Paige's blog for more lengthy hand cut lettering quotes :

http://www.paigeandchris.com/2015/06/the-one-with-make-it-big-scraplifts.html?m=1

She's even featured my page as one from our student gallery. I'm pretty honored that she added me to her blog post!

Thanks for looking!